Giving & Getting

Jay Johnson -- It's Christmas week. It's the beginning of Kwanzaa. It's Boxing Day week. It's winter. There is so much to celebrate this time of year.

I'm going to be making Martha Stewart's recipe for Boeuf Bouguignon for a Christmas Day gathering of neighbors, and we'll serve a ham and many side dishes from some gourmet stores in the area.

We'll have a Buche de Noel for dessert, which will bring on some ooh's and aah's. In the center of the table will be a large jardiniere centerpiece filled with small wrapped presents. This was my partner's idea, and it shows his great generosity of spirit.

These "stocking stuffers" will be specially selected for each of our 15 or so luncheon guests. They will be festively wrapped, each sporting a gift tag. When the lunch is over and the guests put on their coats, each will receive a stocking stuffer on their way out.

I think that will probably be the nicest part of the entire holiday. Okay, everyone will feel happy and full from Martha's Beouf Bourguignon, and the rest of the edibles will go down nicely. But it's important to make a gift-giving connection with family and friends.

Giving and receiving gifts has been a tradition for centuries. The native potlatch ceremony (see photo above)  celebrates "extreme giving," with status conferred on the family or clan who gave away the most possessions.

You could be bankrupt by the end of the ceremony, but you were huge in the prestige department!

Our exercise in gift giving helps us concentrate on each one of our guests and think about things they might like and/or use. Hopefully the small gift will bring some degree of joy. We know the giving part feels mighty good.

Our new stocking stuffer tradition, having our Christmas luncheon guests leave with a little present, will hopefully help everyone focus on the good feelings and appreciation we feel around this special time of year.

Four out of five surveyed Americans feel the holidays are too materialistic (Center for a New American Dream), and that's probably true. I wholeheartedly embrace the Center's vision of developing an Alternative Gift Registry within your network of family and friends. Check out their website, and consider it for your network.

In the 500 video shorts contained in my Design2Share Video Library on YouTube, you will see examples where I have taken my video camera -- a sturdy palm-sized Radio Shack $99 camtastic Sanyo special -- and I shot a video of Holiday Time at Lincoln Center, Holiday Lights!, and Santa Wreath,  my little holiday gifts to you and your family.

For 2008, my resolution is to give the Alternative Gift Registry a try for next year's Christmas lunch! I'll feel even better about giving homemade, recycled, second-hand, and environmentally-friendly gifts that are thoughtfully chosen for each guest.

Photo Credits: Milky Way Jewels, Center for a New American Dream, The Bridal Wishlist

Update on November 10, 2009 by Design2Share

Visit Design2Share's Holiday Decorating Special throughout the months of November and December to keep picking up helping tips for home gifts, holiday decorating ideas, and groovy yuletide decor tips.

And check out our New Design2Share Shop for unique home decor and gifts. We're adding new products all the time, each a hand-picked favorite from the D2S team. Keep coming back!

Peace on Earth

Jay Johnson -- Many TV commentators discuss the past year's events and rank them. War stories rate high on the list, as they always do when America is engaged in combat overseas.

I received inspiration for this week's Video Design Diary while jogging through Manhattan's upper west side neighborhood. First, I was freezing, despite being bundled up in a D&G ski hat and layers of Under Armor and sweats.

But I warmed up quickly when I stopped to film the Nicholas Roerich Museum on Riverside Drive and 107th Street.

Most people have never heard of Nicholas Roerich, but in a time of war, he is worth introducing to our design-savvy audience. Roerich  (1874-1947) had an extraordinary life that reads like a fairy tale. Here are some of the highlights.

Early training in art and the law, with strong interests in literature, architecture, and philosophy

Hugely influential stage designer, e.g., set designs for the 1913 Paris premiere of Igor Stravinski's The Rite of Spring

Widely collected painter, and globally influential author and spiritual teacher

He and his wife Helena traveled through the United States in 1920 and then settled in New York in 1921, founding the Master Institute of the United Arts, which is now the Nicholas Roerich Museum

Went to India in 1923 and toured extensively throughout the region; in 1928, they moved to a home in the foothills of their beloved Himalayas

In 1929, back in New York, he proposed the Roerich Pact which urged member countries to fly the Banner of Peace, a flag with three magenta circles, symbolizing art, science, and religion of all cultures co-existing within beauty, truth, and harmony

The flag is considered the "Red Cross" of art and culture, alerting the world to important sites that must be protected from war at all costs because of their priceless architectural, cultural, religious, and artistic significance (see the Center for Peace Through Culture)

In 1929, Roerich was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; he received two more nominations during his lifetime

The Archaeological Survey of India, Department of Culture, Government of India declared Roerich's Over the Pass painting and the works of a small number of artists "not being antiquities, to be art treasures, having regard to their artistic and aesthetic value" 

Roerich moved permanently to India in 1936, and his paintings of the region express a sense of freedom through the imagery of nature's vastness juxtaposed with the solitariness of the human

In the 500 video shorts contained in my Design2Share Video Library on YouTube, you will see examples where I have taken my video camera -- a sturdy palm-sized Radio Shack $99 camtastic Sanyo special -- and shot videos of culturally significant buildings.

Watch my Unusual NYC Museum video and you will see the outside of the Nicholas Roerich Museum. Unfortunately I could not shoot inside the museum, but even if I did, I could never have captured the profound beauty of Roerich's artwork. He instilled light and spirituality on canvas in the most moving way. I urge you to see his works whenever possible, on display throughout the world, and particularly in this Manhattan museum.

Peace on Earth, and Good Will to All.

Photo Credits:  French Cut, Phespirit, Chdmuseum